[Let's hear it!!! Post your music here!]

Thanks for your review, Phait

[Let's hear it!!! Post your music here!]

Originally posted by learjeff:

Great work, Roland! Nice slick production, and I don't mean that as a veiled criticism I think you nailed the ambience you were going for. Great bass part -- great sound too, especially the opening notes. (Sounds very real -- yet later I suspect it's a keyboard part. That or very precise articulation.)

Jeff, thank you! Indeed, the bass comes from the S80. I layered two of the preset sounds, one called Sting whatever... and the other one being a fretless.

[Let's hear it!!! Post your music here!]

Mojazz, a big thank you for your suggestions.

 

For me it is a great experience to hear what others say about it because everybody hears it differently. What I learn right now is that I'm meanwhile unable to judge what is good and what is not

 

Actually, the bass sounded too boomy in my car so I brought the low end down a bit (after having it boosted in the first place). Maybe I should have turned up the volume a little more afterwards. Honestly, I felt a bit uncertain about the levels during mixing. Now, if there's some time I will try again and take your and gangsu's suggestions (bass up, solo up). However, chances are good that I simply leave it as it is now due to lack of time...

 

About the guitar... The licks you mention happened more or less "by accident" I unfortunately was not able to reproduce them sound-wise, so after a few hours I decided not to do more than I already had. I guess I should have tried harder

[Let's hear it!!! Post your music here!]

Gangsu, thanks for your review Initially, I had the solo louder but this somehow didn't feel right. Maybe this is not only a level issue. About that upbeat guitar krk in the intro, I admit it didn't come out exactly as I intended. I had that idea of a somewhat "insane" intro, however not too long so that nobody gets a change to zap away before the tune starts.

[Let's hear it!!! Post your music here!]

Okay then, I would like to hear some feedback about my KC#9 contribution, too (me too, me too ).

 

I call this tune Go Stay (length is 1:47 minutes, MP3 file size is 2.5 Megabytes).

 

The drums took some time to track this time. I use a Roland HandSonic HPD-15 which is a wonderful device for anybody who loves to finger-drum. I try to play as much as possible at once, such as kick, snare, hi-hat pedal. I record these as MIDI, then overdub with cymbals, toms and stuff. Having a MIDI drum track, it is easier to glue the takes together than doing this with Audio tracks.

 

When the entire drum track was done, this time I recorded every single instrument to its own audio track, as if I recorded a real drum kit. I wanted the drums to sound as natural as possible. The HPD-15 sounds are very good already (IMHO) so I only did a little EQ and slightly compressed the kick. Only the snare sticks out quite a bit, and I could not get rid of that sort-of "afterglow" I didn't want to hear, so I applied a gate, followed by a little compression and a tiny bit of reverb.

 

I tell so much about the drums because I feel that they got quite nice this time

 

Everything else I did with my Yamaha S80 which has the PLG150-PF piano board plugged-in. I did some layering, having some of the layers at very low levels. The bass is also layered and got a little EQ on the low-end and the attack.

 

This is also the first time I bring in my Fender Strat. This is kind of a luxury thing since I'm not at all a guitar player. As you see, I use it more as an effect.

 

Most parts of the tune are from the first or second take. The solo I played in two parts (I spent a good Saturday afternoon to layout, practice and track it). I did not quantize anything this time. I MIDI-tracked everything in the first place because it allows me to easily try different sounds. I also find it easier to cut a MIDI part, glue it to another part and edit the transition than doing this on an audio track. As soon as a MIDI track is done I record it to an audio track. This way, I can operate the S80 in voice mode track-by-track, working around the limitations of the multitimbral S80 performance mode.

 

This was a long story. I hope you enjoy my little tune. Please let me know what you think about it.

 

Thank you very much!

[Introductions?]

Hi Ken, here's a link to the thread you're looking for:

http://www.musicplayer.com/ubb/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic;f=18;t=009168

[Introductions?]

My name is Roland Genske, I am from Velbert in Germany, this is near Wuppertal (you might know Duesseldorf or Cologne better).

 

I am 39 years old and playing the piano since I was 3 or so. At the age of 12 I became a Rock'n'Roll guy dreaming about a Hammond organ, but my first piece of gear was a Fender Rhodes, a real old one with ivory keys and the original 'Fender' sign on its back. I was so crazy to sell this wonderful instrument as I needed money to buy a motorbike. Well, that bike didn't live very long and I often have tears in my eyes whenever I remember my Rhodes.

 

I was on my way to become a professional musician but real-life came in-between. It turned out that I worked more as a synth programmer than as a keyboarder, next I found myself buying a home computer (a Sinclair Spectrum). I worked for several companies in the german music business. Perhaps the most famous thing I did those days was developing an extension for the Prophet 2000/2002 which added 8 individual analog outputs which could be independently assigned to different samples. I don't know if this was ever sold outside Germany.

 

Meanwhile I'm a senior software developer in a growing German software company being responsible for commercial tools and solutions all around Unix, Linux and Windows NT/2K. Looking back, I'm very happy with this development since my current occupation gives me more freedom to just play my music as I want to (financially, too) than some of my friends have who are full-time professional musicians. However, I'll probably never get the chance to gig with Lee Ritenour :-))

 

I never stopped making music. Actually, I play a wonderful Bechstein piano which has a MIDI OUT, works great although it lacks the pitch/mod wheels. It connects to a DAW with almost all soft synth's installed which are currently available. I'm using Cubase 5 for my compositions, being a long-term Cubase user since those Atari days.

 

Talking soft-synths: Since I heard a demo of the Emagic EVP (virtual Rhodes/Wurli) I desperately hunger for it to come available (this might belong into a separate thread).

 

Having composed a lot of music just for fun but published near to nothing, my main influences are nearly all these JazzRock fellows (or RockJazz since I really feel much more attracted whenever the rock component dominates). Although my preferences varied over the years, I always come back to Steely Dan, I simply can't resist their magic.

 

A last word: these forums here are so great, I've learned such a lot since I joined here. Thank you 1000times!

 

Roland